Moby-Dick Chapter 69: The Funeral Summary

Once the ship has taken all the whale’s blubber (and thus gotten everything that will have valuable whale-oil in it), they throw the rest of the carcass overboard and let it float away, attacked by sharks, leaving a gory trail in the water that the ship can see for hours.

Even though the whale is dead, it still exerts a ghostly fascination – other ships might see the heap in the water and all the white spray around it, and assume there are deadly shallows and rocks in the area, and shun that place for years to come.